Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
Interpretation
Artists should have confidence in their work, believing any creation has the potential for success.
Ray Charles emphasizes the importance of belief in one's artistic creations. The quote suggests that an artist should approach their work with the mindset that every song they record has the potential to resonate with audiences and become a hit. This confidence might seem egotistical, but it allows for greater creativity and freedom in the artistic process.
In practice
In an artist seminar to inspire young musicians.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.
The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.
Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.
In terms of helping people understand and know each other a little better, music is universal - universal and transporting.
There is no sound more feminine than a woman in a taffeta dress.
When we talk about music, we talk about our reaction to it. One person might say that music is so poetic, while another says it's all mathematics. Yet another might say it's about sensuality, and so on. That's all true. But music is not just one of these things. It's everything all at once.
Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.
I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.
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